The table illustrates the number of people who travelled to six World Heritage sites in three years: 1996, 1998 and 2000.
Overall, Great Barrier Reef, Blue Mountains and Tasmania Wilderness increased, while Central Eastern Rainforest Reserve experienced a decline, and Shark Bay and Macquarie Island fluctuated over the period. Among these sites, Great Barrier Reef was consistantly the most attractive tourist destination.
In 1996, number of people to Great Barrier Reef was the highest, at 1,670,000, nearly doubled to this figure of Central Eastern Rainforest Reserve, which was 810,000 visitors. Blue Mountains, Tasmania Wilderness and Shark Bay respectively attracted 526,000; 450,000 and 84,000 tourists. Macquarie Island received fewer guests than six sites mentioned above, accounting for 350, made this destination the least common place.
Between 1996 and 2000, Great Barrier Reef nearly doubled and maintained the most attractive site for tourism in Australia, about 3,200,000. Similarly, Blue Mountains and Tasmania Wilderness saw the same trend, at 581,000 and 483,000 respectively. In contrast, the year 2000 recorded a decrease of 20,000 people each two year to Central Eastern Rainforest with its tourist numbers falling to 770,000. Otherwise, Shark Bay went up to 102,000 in 1998 before sharply declining to 89,000 over four years. There was a minimal rise by 20 people visited Macquarie Island in the year 2000.